I rang Virgin Media this afternoon to report the fault and was told that there is a network problem in my area which will be causing the slow speeds, and also the reason for the TV to keep rebooting itself.

The guy gave me an estimation of how long it will take and that is 10pm tonight.

In the meantime, our internet is barely usable. A simple page like www.google.co.uk takes about a minute or two to load.

I was told that I'll have some money credited to my account for the inconvenience.

I just hope they get the bugger fixed, and soon!

Oh well. Just been on the phone to them again. According the their status page, the issue was resolved an hour ago, yet it's still crawling.

I've just been informed that this issue has been extended until the 3rd of November, so I'll have to wait until Tuesday for it to be fixed.

Michael is not happy!!

Anyway, the date was set for 19th October. The engineer turned up and carried out the installation. He then tested it using a dedicated Virgin Media speed testing site. He said that I may experience slow internet to begin with which I thought was fair enough, give it time to kick in properly.

Everything was fine for the first week or so, then the router started disconnecting. I have to go into the web based config page and reboot it to get the connection back on. This happens at least 6 times a day.

When it works, it is really quick for downloading. We can download a movie in say 15 mins or so.

That's when it works....

For the last few days, our internet has been running like a treacle river. Our old 20Mb connection was actually faster than this supposedly 50Mb at the moment. It's extremely frustrating. Even a simple page like Google takes ages to load.

We have two copmputers networked through the router. Mine is hard wired into the router and the other is running a wireless connection. Both machines are very slow where the internet is concerned. It's the same when I connect my computer direct to the modem.

I've tried rebooting the modem and the router. I've unplugged them and left them for a while before plugging them back in. Nothing seems to help.

On top of this, our V+ box has started rebooting itself, which is a pain in the backside. I didn't know this as I'm usually out of the room where the TV is, but Stephen told me that it's rebooted about 7 times tonight. It's just as well we weren't recording anything at the time.

I'm going to have to ring Virgin Media again tomorrow to report this. I've already reported the router and they have sent out a replacement, which should be arriving in a day or so.

This is the router we now have.

DIR-615 Wireless N Router

I'll post more after I've been in touch with Virgin.

Around May/June time, I was contacted on Facebook by an old friend. Maybe "old" is not the right word to use, as I'm sure she wouldn't like to be called old. Let's just say it was a friend who I used to hang out with in the late 1970's (the olden days). You can imagine the shock and total surprise that came from receiving this message out of the blue.

Anyway, Lorraine (my "old" friend), wanted to check I was the same person from all those years ago. She was also in touch with another friend of ours from back then, called Lyn. I gave my phone number to Lorraine and she called me that night. We talked for hours. Next day, Lorraine and Lyn came to my flat, and my social life picked up once again.

We started going out every Monday, usually for a bite to eat. Sometimes we'd just stay in and chat or pop over to Lyn's. It's great being back in touch again after all these years.

Through Facebook, we've managed to find a few more friends from back in the day. We've added them as friends on there, and already held a couple of reunions in Cramlington. They went down very well, and our next one is coming up later this month, which is also a night out for Lorraine's birthday. I'm looking forward to it.

My dog, Charlie, is starting to act and look old now. I'm not sure how old he is exactly, as he was a rescue dog when I got him 10 years ago, from the Dog and Cat Shelter on Claremont Road. The vet at the time thought he might have been around 2 years old when I got him, which would make him around 12 years old now. He's starting to have problems with stairs, not so much going down them (he can still run down), but it's the climbing up that's the problem. I know where he's coming from as I have the same problem from time to time. He's also slow to lie down and get back up again. Night times are also a problem. I find it hard to sleep because he gets so restless. he'll lie down, then a couple of minutes later he gets back up and wanders round the room, then lies down again, and so it goes on for a while until he finally lies down for the rest of the night.

Saturday was bad. Stephen was going over home, and I said I'd take Charlie for a little walk, and would leave the flat when he did. Charlie has always got excited when he sees his lead. He barks and jumps around, pulling at my coat etc. Stephen gets a bit embarrassed by this, so usually, I leave the flat and Stephen gives me a minute or so to get down the street before he leaves the flat himself.

I gave Stephen my front door key and asked him to lock up for me. He locked the door and put the key in his pocket. We walked down to the corner shop, then up the next street, where Stephen turned off in the opposite direction to me, and I headed home.

I'd just turned the corner of my own street, when I realised I didn't have my key to get back in. Panicking, I started to walk fast to try and catch up with Stephen,who by now was a fair distance away. I tried running, but it was very hard to do so having Charlie on the lead. I had to sort of walk fast and try to run at the same time, dragging poor Charlie behind me. I caught sight of Stephen, and started to yell out his name. He couldn't hear me of course, so I kept running/walking fast. Luckily, Stephen had realised he still had my front door key and stopped. He turned around to see me and Charlie looking worn out. I got the key back, and turned to come home. Poor Charlie was exhausted after this running, so we almost crawled back up the street. It took ages to get home, and I felt awful at having put my poor Charlie through that marathon thing.

I only take Charlie out for shortish walks these days, because he can't do the long ones anymore without getting tired out. I think his back legs are becoming weaker. I give him a Cod Liver Oil capsule every day, mixed in his food. I'm not sure what else I can or should do.

Before I close, I feel I should mention my computer. It's dead! :( I'm typing this on Stephen's computer, and I'll just have to use this one whenever I can, until I get my own fixed next week or whenever I can afford to do so.

It started out when I was burning some data onto a DVD. I noticed it was taking ages and I couldn't select a fast write speed. Then I remembered something about modes which can be set up for them. Ideally, the drive should have been set to Ultra DMA, but it wasn't. It was set to PIO. There was no way I could change it back to the DMA one. After searching online for an answer, I found a post on a forum that said to simply change the setting in the BIOS. Easy enough, or so I thought. I've changed BIOS settings so many times before, it no longer bothers me. So, I restarted my computer, pressed Del during boot up and entered the BIOS. I found the place I needed to be and change the setting in there to force Ultra DMA. I then saved the settings and quit, restarting the computer. The bloody thing wouldn't boot up anymore. It mentioned something about a floppy drive. I've never had a floppy drive in this computer. I came back onto Stephen's computer to google the problem, and found a few posts on various forums. The solution that came up more than most was to change the CMOS battery. I had a spare motherboard which hadn't been used at all, so I took the battery out of that one and put it into my computer. I started the computer up again, and same problem. I went back into the BIOS and tried to reset everything back to default. That didn't work. I moved the clear CMOS jumper, left it for a few minutes, moved it back to where it should be, took the battery back out and left it for a few minutes. Still nothing...

It was at this point I thought the motherboard or the BIOS was buggered, so I decided to strip the whole thing and rebuild it using the new motherboard. This doesn't phase me either, as I've built a few computers in my time, and took a few courses in servicing and building computers. It should have been really easy to do. It was when I came to take out the processor that the main problem really started. I unclipped the heatsink, and tried to lift it off the processor. It wouldn't budge. I wiggled it a bit and it came away, together with the processor still stuck to the bottom of it. It was glued on with that grey paste. I slid the processor off from the bottom of the heatsink, and it flew across the room and landed in a bucket. I went to get it and found a few of the pins had bent. I tried to straighten them out as best I could, and started to assemble my computer. I came to switch it on. It sounded ok, I got the usual one beep at POST and it went through the motions, but the screen was black and wouldn't switch on. I think this was caused by the bent pins, and maybe the fact that one had snapped off (I found this out later on).

So, I need a new processor. Not only that, I'll also have to buy a new motherboard and RAM, as you can no longer buy those processors. It's not all that old (AMD Socket 754)...maybe 3 years if that? So basically, I'll have to build a new computer. BUGGER!!!

I'll post back to let you know how it goes...

Here are a few articles

http://photographywired.com/2009/02/22/copyrightprotection/

Photography Copyright fact sheet from UK Copyright Service.

Copyright Infringement fact sheet from UK Copyright Service.

With the next shot, I just wanted to catch the traffic as it went past.

During a lecture on Essential Oils, they told us how the foot soles can absorb oils. Their example: Put garlic on your feet and within 20 minutes you can 'taste' it.

Some of us have used Vicks Vapo rub for years for everything from chapped lips to sore toes and many body parts in between. But I've never heard of this. And don't laugh, it works 100% of the time, although the scientists who discovered it aren't sure why. To stop night time coughing in a child (or adult as we found out personally), put Vicks Vapo rub generously on the soles of your feet, cover with socks, and the heavy, deep coughing will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief. Works 100% of the time and is more effective in children than even very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition it is extremely soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly.

Just happened to tune in A.M. Radio and picked up this guy talking about why cough medicines in kids often do more harm than good, due to the chemicals in them. This method of using Vicks vapo rub on the soles of the feet was found to be more effective than prescribed medicines for children at bed time. In addition it seems to have a soothing and calming effect on sick children who then went on to sleep soundly.

My wife tried it on herself when she had a very deep constant and persistent cough a few weeks ago and it worked 100%! She said that it felt like a warm blanket had
enveloped her, coughing stopped in a few minutes and believe me, this was a deep, and incredibly annoying! Every few seconds uncontrollable cough and she slept cough-free for
hours every night that she used it.

If you have grandchildren, pass this on. If you end up sick, try it yourself and you will be absolutely amazed at how it works.

DON'T SHUN THIS ONE.. TRY IT THE NEXT TIME YOU GET A BAD COLD.

THE ONLY THING YOU CAN LOSE IS YOUR COUGH..

Anyway, here are the images I submitted to the category "Metal"

And

Anyway, I thought I'd try installing Photoshop on this old computer to see if I could at least do some basic photo editing. I installed it last night and it works! It doesn't even run that slow. :) So I should be able to process a few more photos and get them posted online.

Check out the newer Adobe Photoshop CS4 here:

Adobe Photoshop Elements is a cut down version of Photoshop that is ideal for image processing. You can check out and purchase Elements from here:

I'm now wondering if Lightroom will run on here. We have that on the newer computer and I love using it. For those of you who don't know what Lightroom is, it's like the equivalent of a photographic darkroom, only in a software version. You can do many things with it. I use it to import my RAW files, carry out corrections such as white balance, exposure etc, and then save the files to tiff format before opening them in Photoshop where I will usually complete any editing or add effects to the images.

You can find/purchase Lightroom here:

I'll keep you posted on how I get on with these programs on the old computer, but up to now, it's going really well.

Photography Tips: The Rule of Thirds and Photography.